Bon-Ton Enhances E-Commerce Business With New Fulfillment Center
By Anna Rose Welch, Editorial & Community Director, Advancing RNA
Company looks to strengthen e-commerce business and bridge gaps between channels
Last week, Bon-Ton announced its plans to build a new fulfillment center in West Jefferson, OH. This new direct fulfillment center should be up and running by the spring of 2015. Right now, the company has four distribution centers handling its e-commerce business. However, upon completion of this newest DFC, the company plans to consolidate the e-commerce fulfillment that is currently spread amongst the four other distribution centers. CEO Brendan Hoffman says “In response to the rapid growth in our e-commerce business, we are taking this step to ensure extraordinary service to our customers. This new fulfillment center will permit significant expansion of our shipping capacity with improved operational efficiency.”
Creating a solid online shopping experience has been on Hoffman’s agenda for a while now, and the DFC is just one more step towards that goal of strengthening the company’s e-commerce operations. However, Bon Ton is certainly not the only company pushing to grow its e-commerce business. Nordstrom and Home Depot, for example, are just a couple of retailers that recently announced plans to add new fulfillment centers in order to ensure customers are getting their online goods in a timely fashion.
Investments in new fulfillment centers will certainly be key for retailers as more consumers begin turning their attention to retailers’ convenient and endless online aisles. However, stores are also finding it necessary to start turning their attention to brick-and-mortar stores in order to blur the lines between channels. As Internet Retailer reports, brick-and-mortar stores in particular have begun to see slower traffic as customers begin browsing and making purchases online. This decrease in foot traffic was particularly evident this holiday season when ShopperTrak reported a 14.6 percent slump in foot traffic compared to 2012. Over the past few years, some of the top retailers, including Abercrombie & Fitch, Target, Gap, and Best Buy, have reported gains in online sales while store sales have left more to be desired. In response, many retailers, including Bon-Ton, have been getting creative to keep brick-and-mortar stores relevant and to bridge the gap between stores and e-commerce.
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For Bon-Ton, Luis Fernandez, chief omni-channel officer, says, “We believe that over time, there will be this fusion of the web and stores, and the technologies that enable that are things we want to start exploring now. We want to learn and develop and hone our skill set and understand how to leverage them in a strategic way.” One recent development has been the addition of free Wi-Fi so consumers are able to easily access the web from their phones while browsing. The company has also been working to integrate online and store inventories so that online shoppers are given real-time insights into inventories at nearby stores. Even Fernendez’s position as chief omni-channel officer speaks to the company’s determination to usher in the age of seamless shopping. This title was actually new to Bon-Ton. In 2012, Fernandez came aboard as the CMO. His new role as chief omni-channel officer added information technology to his list of responsibilities. As Fernendez tells Internet Retailer, “The job is really about linking the customer data and experiences between the websites and the stores and making sure we have the right marketing and e-commerce experience to support and promote that.” Now, with the new DFC on the horizon, Bon-Ton has further solidified its e-commerce business for customers and is slowly building a strong foundation for a seamless shopping model.